


vae victis

by AceQueenKing



Category: Rome (TV 2005)
Genre: F/M, Masochism, Post-Canon, Sadism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:41:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27768466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceQueenKing/pseuds/AceQueenKing
Summary: Every year, Octavian refuses his sister's suitors for one simple reason: when she comes to confront him about it, Octavian feels, for once, well and truly alive.Regrettably, Octavia doesn't quite share his feelings.
Relationships: Mentions of Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus | Emperor Augustus/Livia Drusilla, Mentions of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa/Octavia of the Julii, Octavia of the Julii/Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus | Emperor Augustus
Comments: 1
Kudos: 20
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	vae victis

**Author's Note:**

  * For [logorrhea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/logorrhea/gifts).



His sister entered his home as she always did: with careful and deliberate fanfare. He could tell from the body language of his wife, Livia, that she was most displeased with this visitor coming to cross their hearth, though Octavia did so rarely. Livia was a woman quiet only due to the cruel fates that had placed so sharp a mind into the body of a woman; as such, she could not help but to see the threat. He could only imagine the fire that would go through her had Livia known that his introduction to worldly pleasures, beyond that given at a prostitute's discretion, had been given at the hands of his sister.

"Lady Octavia," she pronounced—no family name, a careful insult if ever there was one—and his sister, no less sharp, did not bristle at the insult; Octavia had an iron spine, forged in the crucible of their childhood. Livia looked to him, pleased with her rudeness; he waved a hand, dismissing it, as he rose from his seat.

"Leave us, Livia." His wife stared at him a moment too long, and for the briefest of seconds, he saw the way her mask slipped. He caught it: the displeased sharpness of the bed-mate rose, suddenly, to overtake the meek wife mask she wore in public. But she was a woman of noble birth, and so the mask fell back within seconds to its normal placidity.

"Yes," she said, and she was gone. She did not bother to look back. Good.

"Sister," he said; this, and this alone, produced a reaction out of Octavia. He watched: the clench of her hand on a silk gown he had paid for, the fine fruit of the oriental trade that she profited from despite her spurning of all his invitations. Octavian carefully took his sister’s measure as she refused to grant him even the hint of a greeting. Mother had trained her too well. Mother wasn’t with her, which meant whatever her complaint, it was not likely about anything in their household—not that he had given them much to quibble with. Octavian learned too well through lesser men’s mistakes how women could crumble the world: he saw it in his mother's baiting of Marcus Anthony and in the way Cleopatra had ensnared both Mark Anthony and Julius Ceasar, too.

"To what do I owe such a visit?" He played dumb, moved a corner dog in this game of Ludus Latrunculorum. A feint of an opening, but Octavian found it always best to let his enemy over-extend itself before choosing his own strategy.

"You rejected my suitor," she spat. "Again." Ah. He should have predicted this. He had thought after ten attempts, she would cease her squalling with this, would get a _clue_ as to how the traitor he’d once referred to as _friend_ was beneath her.

But she shared the same iron spine that he himself and indeed his mother had held. Perhaps the heavy iron in that spine was what had let them live when so many had died; what had left father to die of illness when the three of them had recovered.

"Ah." He turned toward her. Said little else.

"I love him," she spat. "I love him." It mattered little in the game that was the highest politics of Rome. The gods did not smile on the betters shopping themselves out among the poor. How else to explain the trials of Hercules, of Aeneas? Gods and men should not mix, and neither should the patricians with the plebeians.

"Marriage has little to do with love." Some were perhaps lucky enough to find it, or something close to it. His own marriage had its ways: Lidia was attractive, and her dowry more so, but the woman was smart enough to know her place. Octavia had been unlucky; he could trace her faults through her paramours. Too trusting, like Pompey; too unwilling to play politics, like Gaius; perfidious and plotting as himself; as foolishly moved by emotion as Mark Anthony. He was reminded of nothing good in staring at her and yet he found himself unable to stop looking at her.

She was beautiful. Those haunted large eyes, so full of sadness – it was an exquisite sight. It made him twitch in appreciation, her pain so close to his own.

She could be rendered in marble, the glory of her. A finer specimen of womanhood could not be found. If he were Jupiter and Livia Juno, so much surely his sister would be the ever-seductive Ceres, dangerous and alluring all at once. He touched her arm, unable to resist the bountiful temptation of being close to her. She had not talked to him in a year. 

And like Ceres, Octavia too could freeze the world, he thought, as the sadness in her eyes hardened into anger, and those same crystalline eyes bored through him. 

"I am nearly past child-bearing age," she hissed. "Mother is an old woman." He could not imagine it. He had not seen his mother in years but could not imagine her being anything less than the awful harpy she had been when Cleopatra and Mark Anthony's sorry bodies had been ridden through the square. It was unfortunate, perhaps, given their history, but mother had refused his invitations ever since. He had noted how her hands had gripped the hand-rests until they were white at that last meeting-- mother had not the heart, in the end, to entirely spurn Mark Anthony, and as such, also, lacked the ability to entirely embrace her son. But Octavia – she had learned her loyalties. She had not cried out, not so much as even blinked, even as Anthony’s corpse had broken apart into putrescent filth. Amazing how much the man acted in death as he had in life. 

"Then being married," he said smoothly, bringing himself back to the present. "Should not be a bother to you." 

"Agrippa has asked every year in the last decade." She jabbed angrily at his chest, the first she had touched him in a year. "And you have denied him, every year!"

"As I said," he replied, coolly. "He is not worth your tears." He shook his head. He had heard the rumors. Livia was a poor man's version of Octavia—the same blond hair, if not the same bright, tender eyes—in the eyes of the plebians. And there was a part of him, endlessly frustrated by but none the less undeniable, that acknowledged there was a kernel of truth in this description, for he had been first enraptured by her hair, delightful waves of plentiful tresses, in a style similar to _hers_. 

But were such to be true, he wondered: was Agrippa Octavia’s own lesser copy? The same blond hair, if not the slender build nor the proper looks of a patrician: Agrippa had too wide a commoner's nose, had a bit of a gaulishness still left in his features but—there was a resemblance there, and he was not blind to it, and it infuriated him all the more, as his sister continued to enjoy the lesser copy while denying each and every one of his invitations, as if he were not the first citizen of the republic. 

"I do not ask you for much." Furious, cold; she wanted to hit him and were she mother, she no doubt would. But she was not mother, and was a kinder, more tempting thing: instead, she gripped her own forearms as if she could hug herself into believing him capable of warmth. "I know you are not a man moved by things like _love_." 

"No," he admitted. "I am not." 

Or at least, not in ways that she was capable of expressing. 

"There are other men who have asked for me." He stayed silent—this was true, though he had not told her such. Had taken great pains not to tell her such. There was a leak somewhere in his administration; odd, given how he had taken pains also to hide such from Agrippa. Another traitor to his sister's kind eyes; he would find out who it was, and ensure their function no longer allowed access to such information.

"You have denied them also." Again, a truth.

"Perhaps they, too, were unworthy of you." What citizen could hope to claim her? What man was of higher rank than he? He had sold her once to Mark Anthony. He would not do so again. In this way, he would protect her. In _his_ way. And she would doubtlessly call him a monster for doing so, for the women in his family seemed unable to appreciate such deft strategy. 

"It is _embarrassing_ to be unmarried so long. People will think I am one of Vesta's flames!" He could not imagine her in the temple garments; were Octavia to ask, he would refuse, despite the temptation to accept so no other man would have her. No, to see her in the long and fussy garments of the vestal virgin or even those of Orbona—it would profane the entire office. Such could not be allowed. The gods themselves would spite him for placing such a Venus in such rags. 

"You've been married twice publicly," he said flatly. "No one will imagine you a virgin." 

She reached out a hand and slapped him hard across the mouth: hard enough it hurt, the stinging sending feels of both pain and pleasure into his body. He took a long, deep sigh and treasured the feel of it. He felt only alive in these moments, anymore: when Livia had her hand on his throat, when Octavia brushed her fingers against his cheek. It would leave a mark, he thought, and tried not to show the giddiness.

"You have no honor," she hissed. "I don't even know why I ask anymore." Her voice threatened to break, a noise both dreaded (she would leave) and welcomed (his heart beat fast, for the first time in—how long?). "You clearly are just doing this to _punish_ me."

"Perhaps you deserve such treatment," he said, flatly, though he knew she did not. Her hand moved toward his face and he leaned down, desperate, welcoming: _yes, yes_. _Slap me. Hit me. Make me feel_.

Her hand went across his face: _crack, crack_. She spared none of her not inconsiderable power from her hit and he spent every second memorizing the sensations of it: the brief crack of pain, the feeling of numbness as the hit slowly did damage to his humors, then the bright heat of anger that blazed across his cheeks. Was it anger or ardor? He did not know. He did not particularly care. For one glorious moment, as his sister slapped him with the full wrath of Ceres herself, he felt only glory.

He leaned into her face, seeking another physical release. Her hand raised to his cheek and she paused, her fingers limply toward his cheek.

"Do it," he said. He knew she would. For a few glorious moments, she would make him feel. he lived for this. Needed it. Her fingers fell, the anger calcified into something strange in her eyes.

"No," she said. "It's not worth it."

She turned sharply; he sighed in exasperation. He had been so close, and this year she had given him so little. "Perhaps I will relent," he offered; she stopped. He caught the difference between her pride and her temptation; he closed the gap between them, eager to seduce her. His hand moved down her shoulder, daring; a calculated effort. "Sooner or later, I will relent."

"When?" Her voice, barely a whisper. "When?"

"When I no longer feel jealous of him," he offered; the truth, and it hurt. She whirled around, fury in her eyes. Her hand gripped her gown; he bent his head.

"Please." He swallowed, the eagerness almost distracting. "If it makes you feel better, by all means."

"You are horrible," she said, her voice shaking. Her fingers traced his chin, those fingers a potent mix of both power and fury.

"A monster," he agreed. He waited for the hand to draw back, for the woman to once again give him a reminder that he was living, that he was _alive--_

"Pitiable." She spit at him; an ugly thing, a globule of spit that landed on his hand; he hurriedly wiped it off, looking up at her as she rapidly turned away. Such vulgarity such as spitting was beneath her, beneath them—she needed to come at him with claw and slap, passion made and unmade in her hands, not this, not treating him like he was a random peasant--

"I'll see you next year, Octavia," he said; she did not bother to reply.

He watched her small form as the numbness crept into him, as Octavia vanished down the halls. He watched her touch her eye, and gently brush away a tear, and felt the world once again slip into its usual dullness, just game pieces on a game board, ready for him to play and conquer.


End file.
